Bird's view

A service to the poor bastards who are so unlucky to live anywhere but on the Croatian coast. Croatia Airlines lowered the prices of selected domestic flights. If you choose an early or late flight, you can fly from Zagreb to Split, Zadar or Dubrovnik for a price much lower than if you go by car. Zagreb-Dubrovnik by car is a lengthy (at least 9 hours of driving) and expensive trip: 187 kuna toll for the highway up to Ravča/Vrgorac, not to mention fuel costs.
Google Maps incorrectly still thinks the highway doesn't go further south than Šestanovac. A 45 minute flight Zagreb-Dubrovnik should cost no more than 300 kuna if you book a last minute or far in advance. Dubrovnik's famous city walls welcomed 9 percent less visitors in the first five months of 2009 than in the same period last year, so hajde!.
Annually 800.000 tourists walk on the thick walls, resisting the temptation to jump in the Adriatic. Some dare devils do jump, though from the rocks right below the walls.

Dubrovnik last minute

Yesterday I wrote about the competition Dubrovnik faces from Montenegro. The bigger problem, of course, is the world wide economic crisis. Dubrovnik's tourist sector saw a 20 to 30 percent fall in business. To counter this downward trend, Dubrovnik mayor Andro Vlahušić said two million kuna would be set apart to finance a management body that will deal with Dubrovnik as a tourist destination. Let's hope this awkward management new speak will deliver.
Vlahušić added: "We have to see whether Dubrovnik can collectively organize a last minute offer. We are not talking about low cost, but about last minute". That would be a revolution in economics. Where's the financial reward for the tourist who books a last minute trip to Dubrovnik?

Money talks

When the government strikes a deal with the Catholic Church you can be sure our liberty is in danger. And so were denied the pleasure of shopping on a Sunday afternoon. For the sake of a handful of childless priests and nuns, many hard working shop owners and parents lost income or even their job as they suddenly had to close their business on Sundays. According to Večernji list already 1152 shops went out of business.
Some smart local guys found a way to defeat the unholy alliance between the national government and the universal church. Towns simply organize a fair, week after week. During fairs, shops are allowed to work all Sunday long. That is, after all, the essence of a fair: buying and selling.
Especially in Dubrovnik, tourists were unpleasantly surprised to find the doors of souvenirs shops closed. Often they arrive with huge cruise ships and spend one day in Dubrovnik. If that day is a Sunday, they won't be able to buy Dubrovnik's best selling souvenir: Babushka dolls (Matryoshka dolls), mostly made in China. Inventive entrepreneurs from Dubrovnik started organizing trips to nearby Montenegro (Herceg Novi, Kotor, Budva), with its beautiful beaches, lower prices, liberal opening hours and night clubs.


Oh, and with its euro, which is really convenient.

Local elections (3)

Sunday is the second and decisive round of the local elections. In Zagreb, Osijek, Velika Gorica, Split and Dubrovnik (and some smaller towns) voters will decide which candidate they like best. The campaigns have been dirty and election rules have been violated. People who abstained from voting in Dubrovnik's first round received a letter from the HDZ party to support HDZ candidate Dubravka Šuica in the second round. How does HDZ know who voted and who did not? Aren't those lists supposed to be secret?
In a move to boost her popularity incumbent Dubrovnik mayor Šuica had "Parking pass holders only" signs removed, copying Zagreb's mayor Milan Bandić. I think one should have much disdain for voters to think that such cheap moves attract them, but in the Croatian take-and-give political culture this might work.
Milan Bandić sent me a nice postcard yesterday. It is a copy of the photo above, showing Bandić and his "achievements". It says "Citizens know", meaning that they know that Bandić built a brigde, an apartment block, a roundabout, laid out a public park, and so on. Truly impressive. But I was really amazed to see the Museum of Contemporary Art on the postcard. Zagreb is probably the only European capital without a functioning Museum of Contemporary Art. Since time immemorial the old museum is closed, pending the opening of the new museum in Novi Zagreb. When that new museum will be opened - no one knows, not even Bandić.
If a man like Berlusconi can be reelected in Italy, I don't see why Bandić wouldn't win the second round in Zagreb. I would just recommend Bandić to speak standard Croatian, and a bit slower please. You are completely incomprehensible to people who learned Croatian as a second language.

The British conspiracy against Croatia

Croats love conspiracy theories. Also, they are very touchy when it comes to their beautiful homeland. Therefore, if someone criticizes Croatia it must be that that person has a reason, a hidden motive for doing so. After a critical BBC report about crime and corruption in Croatia, Croatian politicians resorted to stereotype conspiracy theories.
More about that later. First the critique on Croatia. Yesterday I referred to a BBC article, which was actually based on a BBC Radio 4 report. You can listen to it online. The essence is that on the surface Croatia is a fantastic country, but underneath... Corruption, organized crime, murder.
As if that was not enough, the The Economist ran a worrying article on Croatia too. Already the title "A Balkan state in balk" is considered offensive by many Croats, as they believe that Croatia is not a Balkan country. The article mostly concerns the Slovenian blockade of Croatia's EU negotiations.
The sting, however, is in this passage: "Even without the Slovene problem, the Croats have a lot still to do to satisfy Brussels. One big difficulty will be a reform of shipbuilding, which employs as many as 17,000 people, but survives only with huge subsidies. Other profferings of public largesse designed to sweeten voters before the local elections are also causing trouble. Many economists said the government could not afford the public-sector wage rises of 6% it announced in January. Now deteriorating public finances have forced a humiliating reversal of the decision. The IMF has joined critics in arguing that Croatia must shrink its public sector."
I think The Economist is perfectly right. Croats are led to believe that the border dispute with Slovenia is the only thing that keeps Croatia out of the EU. Economic reforms, which are so necessary, are hardly being discussed. A great deal of Croatia's moribund industry and agriculture might be wiped out by European competition once the protective tariffs are eliminated. It is very difficult to find out how high the import tariff (or legalized theft, if you like) for, say, wine is, but a glance at the wine section of a Croatian supermarket tells me it is pretty high. There are not many foreign wines on the shelves, and those available are ridiculously expensive.
How did Croatian politicians respond to these harsh articles? Let me start saying that I can perfectly understand that Croatia is unhappy with these negative reports. Foreign tourists are supposed to save the Croatian economy and tourism is a very vulnerable sector. If some shit happens in Kosovo, people rule out Croatia as a holiday destination. As simple as that.
Instead of taking some criticism to heart, prime minister Sanadar said: "Some regret that we have more and more tourists", suggesting that other countries envy Croatia for its competitive edge in tourism. Other ministers used words like "malicious", "biased" and "vicious". I heard Foreign Minister Gordan Jandroković saying that is it suspicious that this report came right at the beginning of the tourist season... Or take the opening sentence of the HRT website: "It seems that the British media are united in depicting Croatia as a Third World country". Well, we are talking about the state-run national TV here. Self-reflection is not their strongest point.
It reminds me of the Croatian anger over an Australian TV show about the apathetic attitude of Dubrovnik's police when an Austrian girl went missing. Why are they doing this to us? They hate us. They want to harm Croatia. That is the typical childish response.

Australian TV angers Dubrovnik

On 17 September 2008 the Australian girl Britt Lapthorne went missing in Dubrovnik. She was last seen in Club Fuego, a night club in Dubrovnik, a bit after midnight. Three weeks later her body was found in the sea. Since that day Croatian and Australian media have been speculating about the cause of here disappearance and death. Croatian police haven't found a murderer and a Croatian autopsy found no evidence of violence. A second post-mortem examination, performed in Australia, failed to determine the cause of death too.
The case seemed to have reached a dead end. But this week Australian Channel Seven aired a report on Britt Lapthorne's death. According to Channel Seven's investigation there is a "pattern of criminal activity in Dubrovnik". Several non-Croatian girls have fallen victim to abduction or abduction attempts, both before and after Britt's disappearance. The abductors pretended they were police and ordered the girls to step into a van.
One girl did step into the car, but managed to jump out of it when she realized the men were no police at all. About a year ago she reported the abduction to the Croatian police. Despite that, a Croatian officer initially denies to Channel Seven that there are any reports of abductions in Dubrovnik. A moment later he has to admit there are two reports of abductions. You can see the program on YouTube (part 1-7, in total about 30 minutes) or read a summary in The Australian.
An American expert made a forensic sketch of one suspect, based on what one girl, named Amber, saw that night. So, who is this guy?
A Croatian cop!
According to Croatian police, the men that approached Amber did not pretend they were police, they were police. As The Daily Telegraph wrote: Croatian police last night confirmed the men that approached Amber afterwards were officers. But they said the officers were trying to help after hearing of a disturbance. "He is a police officer but he was there on duty," police spokesman Krunoslav Borovec said of the sketch of a blond man. "He and his colleagues heard something was going on, some noise, so they ran to help her."
Why would Amber blame an honest Croatian cop who tried to help her? What's behind all this? Croatian police know the answer: "It's an attempt to trash the tourist season."
I have heard a great number of Croatian conspiracy theories, but this beats everything. However, it is not unlike the general opinion in Croatia about Britt's case. Vladimir Faber, spokesman for the police, said that the abduction story is simply made-up. On TV and in newspapers citizens of Dubrovnik air their opinions. A pensioner said to Jutarnji list: "Dubrovnik is one of the safest towns in Croatia. I don't know why they are doing this to us."
There is even a Facebook group with over 5.000 members to show the world that Dubrovnik is a safe place. Rather sad, if you ask me. I know Dubrovnik is a safe place, but that doesn't mean something like a murder can't happen.
At the end of the day, we still don't know what happened to Britt and who the men in the van are. Real of fake cops? Criminals or police that tried to assist foreign backpackers?
To be continued.

Dubrovnik's own Chinese wall

Yesterday I wrote about Asian restaurants. As you know many Chinese eateries are called Great Wall of China. That reminded me of the Great Wall of Dubrovnik. I don't mean the city walls here, although they are great, but the walls on the Pelješac peninsula, some 55 kilometers north of Dubrovnik. The Republic of Dubrovnik bought Pelješac in 1334 from Serbia. It's hard to believe, but in those days the Kingdom of Serbia possessed great parts of Southern Dalmatia and Montenegro. Three years earlier, in 1331, Dušan was crowned king of Serbia and he enormously extended the medieval Serbian empire. At its zenith it even covered large parts of Greece, though not for long as the Turks started to conquer the Balkans.
Despite its small size, the Republic of Dubrovnik fared a lot better. The old town was well protected by massive walls and Dubrovnik used Peljesac to build another line of defense. At Pelješac's narrowest point, just before it joins the mainland, a wall was build from Ston to Mali Ston. The wall that links these two small communities was 5,5 kilometer long. It was fortified with some forty towers and five fortresses, meant to protect the precious salt pans that contributed to Dubrovnik's wealth.
It is unclear how the walls of Ston rank in terms of length. I have read claims that it is the second longest wall in the world, or in Europe, or in this part of Europe. Whatever the correct answer, the tourists that visit Ston don't get the impression that it is very long. Several earthquakes and centuries of neglect inflicted so much damage on the walls that you can visit only a very small part. There is no way that you can walk from Ston to Mali Ston like you can walk on the Great Wall of China.
In fact, you can't walk on the wall at all, but you can visit the fortifications at Ston and Mali Ston. And you can eat the oysters of Ston, of course, which are considered a delicacy.

Dubrovnik under fire

The siege of Dubrovnik ranks high on the list of senseless acts of war. The people of Dubrovnik commemorated yesterday that the Yugoslav National Army shelled the old town on 6 December 1991, St. Nicholas Day. Dubrovnik had been under fire for months already, but that day saw the worst shelling.
Some 2000 projectiles were fired at the "pearl of the Adriatic" of which 500 hit the old town that is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. 19 people were killed.
A material victim of the shelling was the cable car to the top of the Srđ mountain, from where you have a fantastic view over Dubrovnik. Whereas nearly all material damage in the old town has been repaired, the cable car is still out of order. I visited Srđ a few months ago and was wondering why the cable car was not put back in operation. I was sure the many tourists in Dubrovnik would turn it into a profitable investment.
I did not know then that a real estate company had decided to rebuild the cable car to the top of Srđ mountain. If everything goes smoothly, the first tourists might be transported in 2010.
Zagreb's cable car to Sljeme, the top of the Medvednica mountain, is still out of order. We were promised a state-of-the-art cable car, but for years nothing concrete has happened. Zagreb boasts that it is becoming a hot tourist destination, but it hardly does anyting to attracts more visitors.

A Shakespearean drama: Marin Držić

This year Croatia celebrates the 500th anniversary of Marin Držić, Croatia's foremost Renaissance writer. Držić was born into a big family in 1508 in the then city state of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is obviously proud of its writer, to say the least, and regards him as the Croatian Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante and Moliere. No visitor to Dubrovnik could possible miss the big cloth hanging at the Pile gate, the main entrance to the old town.
Chronologically speaking, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante and Moliere should be referred to as the British, German, Italian and French Držić, since he was born before these literary icons. That no one does so, suggests that Držić passed into oblivion outside of his homeland.
I can't say much about the quality of his plays, but if they are only half as interesting as Držić's life then they are definitely worth reading. He travelled to Vienna, Constantinople, Venice, Sienna and Florence. There, in Florence, he tried to convince the Medici to help him overthrow the autocratic Dubrovnik government. Under the new government, the nobility would share power with popular representatives. The Medici, however, didn't even bother to answer Držić's letters. Držić moved to Venice, where he died in 1567. He was buried in the Santi Giovanni e Paolo church in Venice.